Monthly Archives: January 2010

An Atlantic City man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday after he held up a Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort employee at gunpoint and took a deposit bag with $73,834, First Assistant Prosecutor Murray Talasnik said. Tyrone Daniels, 39, was convicted of the crime last month and must serve 85 percent of his term before being eligible for parole, Talasnik said. Co-conspirator Margaret Robertson, who worked in the general cashiering office of the Taj Mahal, testified at trial that she stole an access card, gave it to Daniels and told him when the bank-deposit bag would be ready, said Diane Ruberton, who prosecuted the case.

HEAVILY in debt, a businessman and his woman friend decided to end their lives in a hotel room by burning charcoal. Chia Eng Soon, 43, a bankrupt, had borrowed money from illegal moneylenders and owed them about $13,000. He had also borrowed from relatives and could not control his gambling habit, an inquiry heard. Chia and Yap Mui Teng, 39, were found lying motionless on a bed at Fragrance Hotel in Upper Serangoon Road last Aug 15, a few days after he had celebrated the birthday of his wife, Madam Ling Siew Hong, 46.

A FORMER bank manager who transferred more than £130,000 of customers’ money into his own account to pay off gambling debts has been told he could face a spell in jail. Guildford Crown Court heard on Friday that he transferred sums of money ranging from £3,570 to £9,000 on 18 separate occasions. Gifford pleaded guilty to 25 counts of fraud, which included charging £2,392 for tickets to the Isle of Wight which he did not possess.

Two men who followed people home from the Seminole Hard Rock Casino and robbed them of their winnings at gunpoint have been caught, Tampa Police said. Edgardo Rivera and Christopher Neff are now facing robbery charges. According to Det. Jeff McGrath with Tampa Police, on three separate occasions in January, Rivera and Neff would follow big winners around the casino. When the people would leave the casino, Rivera and Neff would follow them home in their car, McGrath said. Once they got to the house, McGrath said Rivera and Neff would use a stun gun and a real gun to rob the people of their winnings.

A 56-year-old Toms River woman Tuesday admitted stealing $18,000 from a church charity in a series of withdrawals with a pilfered ATM card. The defendant’s plea bargain calls for her to receive a four-year prison term when she is sentenced by Hodgson on March 5, said Senior Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Martin J. Anton. She also said she had a gambling problem that fueled the thefts. “At that time, my mind was not good, but I knew what I did was wrong,” Iacopino said. “You were referring to a gambling problem,” Falcetano clarified, with which Iacopino agreed.

A former bank teller has been ordered to serve 33 months in prison and repay $166,834 for money stolen from American Bank and Trust in Miller. Susan Mareska pleaded guilty in November to a federal bank embezzlement charge as part of a plea agreement in which prosecutors dismissed other charges. According to court documents, Mareska developed a gambling habit and created false bank transactions to embezzle money over a seven year period.

A woman arrested on felony charges for helping kill more than 2,000 greyhounds from all over the state has been training racing dogs again in Florida as recently as last week. Ursula O’Donnell was charged with felony animal cruelty in November 2002 after allegedly hiring an Alabama man to shoot and bury greyhounds under her care. According to documents obtained by the Juice, O’Donnell allegedly sent dogs from as far away as Palm Beach and Orlando to Robert Rhodes, a security guard at the Pensacola dog track, who told police he shot the greyhounds for about $10 each. For more than 20 years, Rhodes crassly (and illegally) disposed of greyhounds that were no longer fast enough to compete on the track by shooting them with a .22-caliber pistol.

A postal worker from northeastern Oregon admitted today that she stole cash and money orders from the U.S. Postal Service to feed a gambling addiction and help support her adult children. June Marie Newburn, a 50-year-old resident of Joseph, was sentenced today in Eugene to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $156,462 in restitution to the Postal Service, federal prosecutors reported.

A 40-year-old tourist staying at Caesars Palace was abducted at gunpoint on the Strip last week and held for more than 24 hours while four suspects stole money and valuables from him, Las Vegas police said Wednesday. Lt. Clint Nichols said the tourist was kidnapped at “random” by two suspects about 5 a.m. Friday at a pedestrian overpass near Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road. He was beaten at the apartment. During the course of 24 hours, the suspects got away with his casino winnings, money from ATM accounts and jewelry. They also ransacked his hotel room, Nichols said.

In a 10-minute meeting intended as a rebuke to Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole Tribe, a Florida House committee shot down the governor’s gambling agreement with the tribe and offered up a bill that would give financial relief to its gambling competitors.

The Seminole Indian compact review committee voted 15-0 to reject both the governor’s gambling agreement and the $225 million the tribe had set aside for the state’s education system if a compact had been completed. It then voted 15-2 to lower the tax rate on slot machines at South Florida parimutuels and loosened some gambling limits.

The next step, House leaders say, is for the federal government to shut down slot machines and blackjack tables at the tribe’s casinos until a compact is signed.

In November, House Speaker Larry Cretul sent a letter to the National Indian Gaming Commission, which regulates tribal gaming, urging it to halt the tribe’s casino games because their “ability to profit from these illegal games creates a disincentive to enter into a compact, and places the state at a significant disadvantage in negotiating games to which it never gave its consent.”

The tribe is running Las Vegas-style slot machines, blackjack, baccarat and other table games based on a 2007 compact that was invalidated by the Florida Supreme Court because it allowed the tribe to operate games that were illegal under Florida law. Crist signed a new compact with the tribe on Aug. 31, but it is not valid unless the Legislature ratifies it.

NIGC spokesman Shawn Pensoneau said the agency is monitoring the compact issue in Florida but there would be no immediate action. Galvano said he expects a decision could come this month.

ST. LOUIS — A man who helped build one of the world’s largest Internet gambling companies, only to see it crumble after an indictment by U.S. prosecutors, was sentenced to nearly three years in prison Friday on federal racketeering charges. David Carruthers pleaded guilty in April to racketeering conspiracy. Authorities said Carruthers is cooperating in the case against others associated with his company, BetonSports, and has agreed to testify against them if necessary.

Douglas County authorities arrested a Days Creek secretary accused of embezzling almost $140,000 from her employer to support a gambling habit. Cheryl Kluegl has been charged with theft and forgery and is being held at the county jail. According to the sheriff’s office, the employer told investigators his secretary had been writing checks to herself without his permission since 2006.

A former south suburban library district president was sentenced to two years probation after pleading guilty Wednesday to spending more than $135,000 in library funds to gamble at riverboat casinos. Susan Quirk, the wife of a Posen police sergeant, pleaded guilty to theft and official misconduct, and was sentenced to two years probation, 130 hours of community service and a six-month probation curfew, Cook County State’s Attorney’s office spokesman Andy Conkln said. Quirk was also ordered to undergo therapy and attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings and pay full restitution of $137,708.29, Conklin said. Beginning in 2001, Quirk, 58, allegedly withdrew money from Posen Public Library District accounts by writing checks to herself, prosecutors said.

A one time Evangelist pastor and three other men were charged for running an elaborate $10 million online gambling scheme on Monday. The arrests come 11 months after a raid of the Gold Coast offices of Alan Davenport for allegedly bilking investors out of $10 million on a “sports arbitrage” scheme. Davenport, once a pastor for the now defunct Reach Out for Christ Pentecostal church, ran the online gambling enterprise from his Australian home under the name World Trade Systems (WTS).

Sixty-seven year old Pawcatuck resident George Flynn was sentenced to two years in prison today for embezzling $45,000 from a disabled friend over a seven-year period, telling the victim he was making payments into a “lottery account” that would make him rich. “The odds (of winning the lottery) are like walking out of your house and getting struck by lightning seven times in a row, but the state has no problem promoting it,” Scillieri said. Handy told Flynn she has no problem with people playing the lottery, “as long as they’re spending their own money.” She sentenced Flynn to five years in prison, suspended after two years served, and five years probation.

Police raided a cockfighting enclave and managed to round up 21 of the 50 gamblers who were engrossed in gambling activities on top of a hill in Junjong, near here on Sunday’s night. When police from Kulim and the Kedah police headquarters raided the spot at about 8.30pm, the 50 odd gamblers tried to escape the police drag net but 21 were caught, including the mastermind who was in his 40s while gambling equipment was also seized.

TAMPA — Police are searching for three suspects in a New Tampa armed robbery. About 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Aris D. Williams, 23, was in front of his home when two men with revolvers approached him and demanded money. Williams had just won money gambling at the Hard Rock Casino, and detectives say the men followed him home. Williams threw his cash to the ground, and when one of the suspects reached down to pick it up, he dropped his revolver and one round went off. No one was injured.

The former pastor of a city church was sentenced today to time served and given five years probation for stealing $432,000 from his parish to feed his gambling habit. The Rev. Patrick Dunne of Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church apologized for his actions, admitted to a gambling “addiction” and said he had hoped to raise money for the church through gambling.

Gambling suicides are up slightly, with 13 of them taking place in 2007, according to new figures from the Ontario coroner’s office, and officials say the actual number is probably higher. “Sometimes it’s not immediately obvious that someone who has harmed themselves has a history of gambling,” Ontario’s chief coroner Andrew McCallum said in a phone interview Tuesday. “The numbers probably under-represent the true figures. … People who commit suicide often don’t leave a note.”

SYDNEY, Australia — A man, who has been charged with eight counts of money laundering, appeared in court yesterday in Sydney, nine MSN news reported. Zheng Tan is accused of flying straight to a Melbourne casino after making the cash withdrawal, the nine MSN report said. Tan was refused bail and will appear in court again Feb 23, 2010, according to nine MSN.

After playing blackjack for several hours at Mystic Lake Casino on Jan. 2, an Eagan woman accepted a ride home from a man she met earlier that night, who then robbed her at gunpoint and sexually assaulted her, according to charges filed by the Dakota County Attorney’s Office this week.

Neville Grant, 35, of Plymouth, was charged with first-degree aggravated robbery, kidnapping and two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct on Tuesday. He was later arrested by the sheriff’s office in Hennepin County, where he is also a suspect in a similar case that also occurred on Jan. 2 in Minneapolis.

…therefore, be it resolved that the members of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-fifth General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the Senate concurring therein, hereby urge the United States Congress to remove the federal ban on sports wagering;

This piece of legislation, however, is far from being enacted. The resolution must be assigned to a committee and face public hearings before it could be voted on by the committee, much less advance to the full House floor. It is also a “House Concurrent Resolution” that would require both the House and Senate adoption, thus facing the entire legislative process. Use this time to contact your local House and Senate representative and tell them to oppose such measures.

BATANGAS CITY, Philippines—A man suspected of being a jueteng table manager (an illegal numbers game) was shot dead by an unidentified gunman in San Juan, Batangas, Sunday night, police said Monday. Investigation showed that Quirino Morillo, 35, had just alighted from his black motorcycle at around 6:40 p.m. in Barangay (village) Calubcub 1st, when the gunman approached from behind and shot him several times.

Federal law enforcement officials in New York City ended 2009 by taking a big bite out of organized crime in two separate cases: one involving Gambino Crime Family associates, the other involving a captain with the Genevese Crime Family. There are five families running La Cosa Nostra (‘our thing”) organized crime in New York.

Two associates of the Gambino Organized Crime Family, Letterio DeCarlo and Thomas Dono, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to participating in a conspiracy that resulted in the murder Frank Hydell on April 28, 1998. The defendants also admitted to their participation in a conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business in the late 1990s, according to documents examined by the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s Organized Crime Committee.

About 169 people have been arrested in a cockfight raid northwest of Fort Worth. Authorities said sheriff’s deputies also seized 114 roosters Saturday near Poolville in north Parker County. Sheriff Larry Fowler said Child Protective Services workers also took custody of 10 to 15 children ages 7 to 15. Fowler says drugs and cash were seized and dead and injured roosters were found. He says the raid site had been under surveillance for two weeks. The sheriff says those arrested will be charged with a gambling offense, and that organized crime charges may be considered against some.

Three people were sentenced to death, one with a two-year reprieve, for gang-related crimes by a local in southeast China’s Fujian Province, according to the verdict released Sunday. The court found that Ke began to organize the criminal gang at the end of 2005, and the gang had since then committed crimes including running illegal gambling dens, lending usury and demanding repayment of debts via illegal measures to gain profits, and committed murder, intentional injuries, and causing disturbances to disrupt local economic and social order in Shancheng Township, Nanjing County which is under the administration of Zhangzhou.

The former secretary-treasurer of Communications Workers Local Union 86823 pleaded guilty to the embezzlement of more than $110,000. Sherell Mitchell, 45, of St. Louis County, admitted to writing unauthorized checks to herself and withdrawing cash directly from the union’s account to spend at a local casino, Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Reap said Tuesday.

A former aide to the Rhode Island state Senate with an apparent gambling habit stole roughly $70,000 from the state by forging payroll checks, prosecutors said Tuesday. Raymond “Chip” Hoyas Jr. pleaded not guilty in Providence Superior Court on Tuesday to 52 counts of forgery and one count each of larceny and obtaining money under false pretenses in excess of $500. Prosecutors say he forged checks in the names of dozens of Senate pages and deposited the money in his bank account. “This is corruption at its core and something that is criminal and unforgivable,” said state Attorney General Patrick Lynch, himself a former Senate page. “It’s a betrayal of the public’s trust.”

A reputed high-ranking member of the Gambino crime family in New Jersey pleaded guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy charges today, admitting he led a crew that profited from illegal gambling, loan-sharking, extortion, identity theft, fraud and labor racketeering. Andrew Merola of East Hanover confessed his guilt during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler in Newark. He became the 20th defendant to make a deal with prosecutors and plead guilty to charges outlined in a sweeping May 2008 racketeering indictment.

A pair of masked robbers stole $100,000 from a casino truck stop in New Orleans early Monday morning while technicians were taking money out of gambling machines, according to the NOPD. The surveillance video of 15 cameras shows the crime from start to finish. Co-owner Robert Maloney said the robbers forced the cashier to bag $100,000 in about two minutes time.

A judge Thursday sentenced a Wood River woman to 30 months in prison in connection with the looting of a family-owned heating and cooling business in Wood River. U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan sentenced Mary R. Storer, 40, a former employee of Elk Heating and Cooling, to a jail term and more than $266,000 in restitution to the company. Prosecutors said Storer pleaded guilty and admitted she had taken money from the firm and gambled it away at area casinos. On Thursday, prosecutors presented evidence that she lost more than $200,000 in 2007 alone.

Casino Watch Focus reported that Washington Wizard’s teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton were alleged to have pulled guns on one another in the locker room after a gambling related dispute. The NBA does allow its players to own firearms, but they are prohibited from places like team locker rooms. Forbes is reporting that the NBA Commissioner has suspended Arenas from the NBA indefinitely:

A day after the Washington Wizards guard was photographed before a game in Philadelphia pointing his index fingers, as if they were guns, at his teammates, Stern warned the former All-Star that his conduct will “ultimately result in a substantial suspension, and perhaps worse.”

Arenas is under investigation by federal and local authorities after admittedly bringing guns to the Wizards’ locker room. Stern originally planned to wait to take action, but he tired of Arenas’ behavior. Though Arenas first apologized Monday for his poor judgment and promised “to do better in the future”, he also joked on Twitter about the incident and the media firestorm it created. That was exactly the wrong tact for Stern, whose league has taken another public relations hit.

Arenas has been suspended without pay and stands to lose millions this season. After his wallet was hit, Arenas finally offered a sincere apology for his actions. Forbes continues:

With each game he misses, Arenas will lose about $147,200 of the $16.2 million he will earn this season in the second of a six-year, $111 million contract. The punishment came on his 28th birthday.

“I feel very badly that my actions have caused the NBA to suspend me, but I understand why the league took this action,” Arenas said in a statement through his attorney. “I put the NBA in a negative light and let down my teammates and our fans. I am very sorry for doing that.”

The bodies were discovered about five hours later when authorities sent two robots to the office, Gore said. He declined to identify the victim until his family was notified. “Our worst fears were confirmed,” Gore told reporters outside the convention center of the Barona Resort and Casino. “It appears to be a murder-suicide.”

A man who was fired from his job at a Southern California casino shot and killed a man in his former manager’s office Tuesday, then fatally turned the gun on himself, authorities said. Donnell Roberts, 38, walked into the Barona Gaming Commission building around 10 a.m. with a shotgun slung over his shoulder, ordered three secretaries to leave, then quickly opened fire in the manager’s office, said San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore. Another 13 to 15 people fled through a back door, Gore said. Witnesses heard three shots.

In one of the biggest embezzlement cases in state history, Kathy Borrego was terminated this July for writing more than 500 checks from a school district account, yet as 2009 comes to a close, still no charges are filed against her despite new information revealed in court documents. Earlier last month, Eyewitness News 4 reported how Borrego remains free and uncharged despite accusations she stole $3.3 million dollars from the Jemez Mountain school district. An audit states she wrote 538 district checks to herself and others over a period of years.

Many in the Pottstown community were shocked to learn of theft allegations against former Parks and Recreation Director John Reber when the announcement came that he was the target of an investigation in late July. Just weeks after investigators confirmed Reber was the focus of an investigation into missing funds from Independence Day LTD, a nonprofit that provided funds for Pottstown’s July Fourth celebration, Reber turned himself in to police. He was arraigned on charges including theft by deception, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received, misapplication of entrusted property, receiving stolen property and access device fraud. Investigators alleged he stole $15,721 from the July Fourth fund.

A former in-home healthcare aide was sentenced in Sacramento County Superior Court Tuesday to four years in prison after pleading no contest to stealing more than $500,000 from an elderly Elk Grove couple and tax evasion. Sacramento County Deputy District Attorney Lani Biafore said Jocelyn Pascual Wong, a Phillippine citizen in the U.S. illegally, befriended the couple and was given full house privileges. The victims, retired school teachers, became so fond of Wong they referred to her as their daughter, according to Biafore. Wong began asking the couple for money four years ago, saying she would repay it, investigators found. Wong admitted to Elk Grove police she didn’t intend to pay back the money and didn’t claim the income on taxes, Biafore said. Wong took $527,000 from the couple for gambling, according to Biafore.

A 35-year-old Laurel man was shot to death Monday night and authorities said it may have stemmed from an argument over gambling. Police were called to a home in the 800 block of Sandy T. Gavin Avenue shortly after 9 p.m. Officials said the victim was shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene. A suspect is in custody, and police say he will be charged with murder. Names of the victim or suspect have not been released.

Angry over losing money in a gambling game, a man hired two men to rob and slash a trader at a house in Lorong Galing 34, Jalan Haji Ahmad here, on Tuesday. The 49-year-old victim, who was suffered a slight injury to his body after being attacked with a machete by two men, contacted the police at 2am, said Pahang CID chief ACP T. Narenasagaran. He said the police arrested a 34-year-old man, who had earlier played a gambling game with the victim at an entertainment outlet here, in connection with the attack and attempted robbery. Following the arrest, the police picked up two men aged 22 and 28, he told reporters here on Wednesday.

Two relatives of an Outlook teenager accused of shooting at Yakima County sheriff’s deputies face cockfighting charges. Authorities say the pair’s roosters and fighting gear were discovered when state gambling investigators searched the teenager’s home after the July shooting, which wounded Deputy Bobby Miranda and missed Deputy Chris Stearley. His parents have said he was at their Outlook home when the shooting happened. He awaits trial on two counts of attempted murder. Warrants for the two men’s arrest remained active as of Tuesday, according to the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office. The state Gambling Commission often handles cockfighting investigations.

The treasurer of a Dupont volunteer fire company who admitted to losing about a quarter million dollars gambling was charged by police Wednesday with stealing more than $60,000 from the organization’s relief association. John Thomas Lyons, 31, of Main Street, Avoca, told investigators he used most of the money to gamble at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs and Mount Airy Casino Resort. Another company officer, whose allegedly forged signatures appeared on checks made out to Lyons, said Lyons told her the thefts began after he won a jackpot of around $1,600 at the Mohegan Sun casino and an additional $700 more while gambling.

A couple were arrested early on New Year’s Day and accused of leaving their 8-year-old daughter alone in a hotel room while they gambled at the Hard Rock Casino. Donovan Jewell, 42, and his wife, Nancy Ellen Jewell, 41, were charged with child abuse by neglect and were each being held in lieu of $2,000 bail. According to reports from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the couple left their daughter alone at the La Quinta Inn from 10 p.m. until 4-4:30 a.m., when the scared, crying child awoke and went to the lobby for help, worried because her mother was not there.

This is a news blog for Casino Watch staff, volunteers, scholars and policy makers. The views expressed by each contributor to this blog are those of that contributor alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of Casino Watch.